Effects of Touching Powerful Evil Artifacts

This table is intended to be used when unprepared mortals tamper with things of truely dark and horrid origins. Most effects are fatal, and it is assumed that powerful magic would be required to reverse these.

1.Horrid Rotting.- At first, the flesh - starting with the area that made contact - will be subject to discoloration, psorasis, and eventually full blow rotting. Rotting moves inwards after affecting the limbs, eventually killing the victim. Severing affected parts does not help - the contamination is supernature, and rules of biology do not apply.

2. Petrification - Starts out as minor stiffening and inflammation, with arthritic effects on joints. As time goes by, nodes of stone begin forming in the being’s flesh, starting at the hands and moving to to core. These are very painful and grow in size, eventually petrifying the limb and moving inwards. Eventually, vital organs will be effected and begin failing. Cancer-like symptoms will take, causing death unless checked by powerful magic.

3. Combustion - Users flesh bursts into flame, causing damage until extinguished. Willpower may allow the wielder to employ the Item that caused this effect for a short interval before pain forces them to drop it, or the hand fails due to muscle or tendon damage. It is possible that the fire may not be extingished by conventional means. The fire will start at the point of contact and spread. Interestingly, nothing carried or worn is subjected to the fire. Optionally, any other living flesh touched will also alight.

4. Transformation - User is morphed slowly into a demonic entity, and if the item is held too long, the transformation will be complete and the user lost. Letting go of the item causes the effect to gradually reverse, but at 1/10th the rate of the inital transformation. Other possible forms may be substituted at the whim of the GM.

5. Freezing - User slowly freezes - starts as painful cold, progresses to frostbite and complete freezing. This will start at the point where the Item was touched, and then moves inwards as with the other effects, eventually killing the victim. The effect will continue indefinately, enshrouding the (dead) victim in ice.

6. Crumbling - User’s flesh turns to sand-like granules, falling away and leaving bare bones. Eventually unless magically countered, the victim will be completely skeletonized, and of course will die as major organs are consumed. This effect will only start after a delay upon handling the item, allowing for some use before the user begins their disintegration.

7. Phasing - User begins to fade away into nothingness, though a merciful GM might instead translocate the victim somewhere awful. As they fade, their weight and strength decrease (see Ring of Disappearance for details.)

8. Shrinking - User reduces in size gradually, eventually becoming smaller then the smallest insect. This is not fatal directly, but since the process continues indefinately, they will eventually reach a size where it is irrelevent if they are alive or dead, or they are eaten by a microbe.

9. Encorpulation - User begins to grow fatter and fatter, regardless of food consumption. This process continues until either stopped magically, or the victim dies of complications of their tremendous size.

10. Spiderspawn - Victim has bulbous growths similar to bubonic plague, but once they reach a couple of inches in size, they burst releasing a poisonous spider. This continues even after the victim's death. Each eruption causes a minor injury and may subject the victim to a poisonous bite if the spider is disturbed.

11. Bone Spurs - Victim begins growing sharp bony spurs in random locations, usually starting near the contact with the item was made. These will first appear as lumps and then eventually pierce the skin. If not reversed, Death will eventually follow from blood loss and infection. Those with the ability to regenerate may eventually resemble pincusions.

12. Possession - Victim has a beacon placed on them in the underworld. They will receive constant attempts at possession, and these attempts are at much higher rates of success then normal.

Additional Ideas (8)

13-Midas Touch

Everything the person touches turns to gold. At first a boon-copper and silver coins, buttons, sword hilts and the like turning to gold means more money, this rapidly becomes a bane, as food becomes inedible and drink becomes undrinkable. Unless countered with magic, the affected person will soon die of thirst, surrounded by gold.

14-Touch of Decay

The person's touch rots. Human skin decays in seconds, food goes bad, leather and metal rusts and corrodes over time. The affected person's weapons may end up as rusted pieces of metal and the person wil find it hard to feed themselves.

15-Ageing

Starting at the point of contact with the item and moving in, the person ages, becomeing a doddering old person within days with all the problems of old age. Rather then killing them directly the effect then stops,leaving them without very long to live.

16-Aura of Evil

A bit of the evil aura on the item lingers. Civilians will be scared of the person, law enforcement will be more likely to stop and question him and her, and dark villians may think he or she is one of them.

17-Attract Trouble

The toucher becomes a magnet for trouble, from wolves and bears in wild animals to guards in dungeons to theives in towns.

First, the toucher's fingers and then the rest of their body becomes immaterial, which lasts until the toucher tries to pass through a wall-when the toucher becomes promptly solid with fatal and very messy results.

19-Doppleganger

Starting at the point of touch and moving on, the toucher slowly changes into the villian from which the object was taken. The very last thing to change is the brain, which leaves the PCs with a horrible choice-kill their fellow PC quickly or end up fighting the villian all over again.

The toucher has nightmares that prevent them getting much sleep. Should he/she take sleeping pills or try using a sleep spell then he or she will end up in a fight in a dream, losing this fight will kill the toucher in the real world.

21-Red Handed

The toucher's hands go the colour of blood, meaning that gloves are needed.

The toucher has an urge to steal and it is a constant hassle to keep it under control, as the majority of times it would be a very bad thing to steal and attract trouble from law enforcement/vigilantes.

23-I See Dead People

The toucher can see and hear ghosts, which whilst they can't hurt him or her, can and do constantly pester him or her for favours.

Spells that are meant to harm people that the toucher casts (fireballs, lightning bolts and the like) have a 50% chance of either hitting a fellow PC or an innocent NPC. Healing spells are unaffected.

25-Lycanthorpy

Every full moon the toucher turns into either the classic wolf or some other creature (see the 30 Lycanthorpes submission for details.) The PC depending on the GM can be in control of his/her were form or just an animal.

26-Long fingers

The fingers of the toucher grow an inch per hour and become many jointed. Not a problem at first until they get ridiculously long.

The toucher is plauged by insect swams, rats, vultures, ect. Whilst not outright attacking the toucher or the PCs they are a pain in the neck and might spread disease.

28-Theme Music

An effect for one of the less serious games only. The toucher is bothered by loud theme music, which ruins ambushes, makes sleeping hard, and causes people to stare at him/her and the rest of the PCs. Bouncers will bar or at least try to bar the affected PC from clubs that play music.

The PC is approched by a powerful demonic being trying to get him to sell his soul. If attacked, depending on the GM it will either fight back (and be a major menace, plus any PCs it kills ends up in Hell) or vanish in a puff of smelly brimstone. It can offer one big piece of help, but only in exchange for the PC's soul when the PC dies.

30-No fingers

The PC's fingers drop off magically, leaving the PC with no fingers and unable to do anything that fingers are needed for, (holding weapons, scratching itches ect) but otherwise unharmed.

Everything's fine. Just fine. Don't worry about it. I'm sure that tingling sensation in your spine is just nerves. In fact, I'm CERTAIN it's just nerves. You just have a case of nerves... bring slowly pulled out of your body through your spine. Hold still, this might hurt.

Generally this is a plain gold ring with little to mark it as extraordinary. Careful examination may find an inscription in very small text giving the phrase to activate the ring.

History

This ring was created by a Wizard seeking a different means of providing invisibility then the common ones which worked by illusion, mental suggestion or simple redirection of light. Being an Elementalist by nature, he chose the path of Elemental Fractional Displacement to provide the desired invisibility. Unfortunately for the wizard, he overlooked the potential danger of this approach and now wanders, unseen and unheard, through his old laboratory even today.

Magic/Cursed Properties

This ring makes the wearer invisible, but by a method different then other rings. Much of the matter of the wearer is pushed into another dimension with the exception of their ‘air’ component, and a trace quantity of the other three elements. These remnants are so faint as to be invisible except in the most extreme situations:

In total darkness, a glow from tiny remnants of fire can be observed, forming a very faint outline.

In bright sunlight, small rainbow patterns will appear where the invisible figure would normally cast a shadow due to the small amounts of elemental water.

If the figure stands in bright light against a dark background, small specks of dust - the remnants of their Earth element will appear and create a humanoid image.

All of the above effects are extremely subtle and unlikely to be seen by any not looking for something unusual. In any environment not as conductive as the ones listed above, which is mostly the case, the chances of seeing a trace of the ring-wearer is remote.

As a side effect of this method, the user loses much of their ability to interact with the world, being little more then a pocket of air. They act as if they had one quarter the physical strength they normally have.

They still retain a humanoid form and cannot squeeze through very small spaces - they have much of the properties of an Areogel - but also are highly resistant to any form of physical damage.

The downside of this ring is that over time, more and more matter will get pushed into the other dimension, and eventually will leave the wearer as nothing but air and spirit. At this point the ring will drop to the ground to be found by it’s next victim, and the wearer will be doomed to float around as a form of non-undead ghost. Perhaps magic could reunite the elements of the victim, but this would not be easy. If the ring is taken off or deactivated prior to reaching the point of no return, the ‘doomsday’ counter gets reset.

It also may be possible that beings in other dimensions could severe the link between the wearer and the bulk of the Earth, Water and Fire that make up their being and condemn them to the same fate as wearing the ring too long.

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